South Carolina couple who killed sex offender act out in court

South Carolina couple who killed sex offender act out in court

From left, lawyer Harry Dest, Jeremy Moody, Christine Moody and lawyer Derek Chiarenza wait for a judge to sentence the Moody's to life in prison on Tuesday, May 6, 2014, in Union, S.C.

Photo by
Associated Press
/Times Free Press.

UNION, S.C. - A couple who carried out a plan to kill a registered sex offender and his wife showed little remorse when they were sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, with one shouting: "That's what child molesters get!"

Initially, Jeremy and Christine Moody apologized to the judge and asked for a 30-year sentence so they could see their children and grow old together. But after Union County Judge Lee Alford handed down the maximum punishment, they shared a brief kiss and then showed how they really felt.

"See you perverts later," Jeremy Moody shouted at Charles Parker's family as he walked out of court. "That's what child molesters get."

And as Christine Moody walked in shackles to a police car outside of the courthouse, she told reporters: "Killing that pedophile was the best day of my life."

The Moodys went to church they day they killed Parker, 59, and his 51-year-old wife, Gretchen. While there, they decided to put into motion plans to kill the mechanic and anyone else in his home.

They drove their car to his house and popped the hood like they were having car trouble. When Parker came out to help, Jeremy Moody pulled a gun and ordered him inside, prosecutor Kevin Brackett said.

The couple then told Parker and his wife exactly why they were going to kill them, Brackett said.

Jeremy Moody, 31, shot the couple, then his 37-year-old wife stabbed them. A surveillance camera on Parker's land caught them leaving, and deputies recognized Jeremy Moody from the word "skinhead" tattooed on his neck and the "Made in America" tattoo on the side of his head.

Both were convicted of murder, kidnapping and first-degree burglary.

Lawyers said both defendants were sexually abused as children and that made them want revenge against the type of people who hurt them. They believed they had a divine assignment to kill all sex offenders, said psychologist Harold Morgan, who analyzed Jeremy Moody.

After he was arrested, Jeremy Moody directed investigators to a sheet of paper in his home. He wrote the name and address of another sex offender, telling police he was going to kill that person the next day if he had not been arrested.

Brackett said the Moodys had no right to act as a judge and a jury after Parker had already served a sentence for taking advantage of a disabled woman.

Outside of reading the 69th Psalm from the Bible and letters from their church members, the couple showed little remorse. They smiled and looked longingly at each other during the hearing. Jeremy Moody smirked as members of the Parker family asked the judge for the maximum sentence. When the judge asked Christina Moody the standard question of whether anyone offered her anything for plea, she answered "just fame and fortune."

The couple told authorities they had killed others, but investigators found no evidence of other crimes, Brackett said.

They were members of a loosely organized online white supremacist group called Crew 41.

Defense lawyers pointed out Christine Moody was a breast cancer survivor who underwent a double mastectomy four years ago and Jeremy Moody suffered from schizophrenia and was not on his medicine when the killings took place.

"He was on his medicine today and look what he had to say," Brackett said.

Parker's family didn't hear Jeremy Moody call them perverts because they were already being taken out of the courtroom. They shrugged off his words outside.

"He got what he deserved. He would kill again if he was let out," said Charles Parker's sister Brenda Franklin. "He can say whatever he wants. He's dying in prison."